074

This is Surah 74 ("Al-Muddaththir" / The Covered One) from the Quran, one of the earliest Meccan revelations, here in a 19th-century English translation. It opens with a divine command to Muhammad to rise and warn humanity, then pivots to a vivid denunciation of a specific unnamed opponent — a wealthy man who heard the Quran, called it mere magic and mortal speech, and is condemned to hellfire. A notable theological passage explains that hell is guarded by nineteen angels, and that this precise number is itself a test: believers will accept it, while skeptics will use it to mock, illustrating the Quran's argument that the same revelation simultaneously confirms faith and exposes disbelief. The surah closes with a direct answer to why sinners end up in hell — they neglected prayer, ignored the poor, engaged in fruitless disputation, and denied the Day of Judgment — framed as a dialogue between the blessed and the damned. Its tone is urgent and confrontational throughout, relying on oath-sworn cosmic imagery (the moon, the retreating night, the dawning morning) to assert the reality of divine judgment. Readers interested in Quranic eschatology, early Islamic polemic against Meccan opponents, or the rhetorical structure of short Meccan surahs will find this a compact and representative example.

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